Maybe it would be better to forget
by HaraKyri
Summary: My take on how Peter ended up partly the way he did at the beginning of Season two. Warning  Spoilers for everything beforehand.


_Hi again... Wow it's been a while since I posted anything, but I've been through a pretty rough patch this last year and my writing suffered, but now it's back with a vengeance with this new Heroes one-shot and my upcoming Supernatural one-shot (I've been busy this week with the writing bug, hee!)_

_ This is my take on how Peter ended up with amnesia, just drabbly really. It will probably be AU by the time that the next episode comes out... But I hope you enjoy it for what it's worth._

_Warning - unbetaed. All mistakes are my own. (I couldn't find a beta reader...)_

_Disclaimer - Heroes does not belong to me, but if it did I would make Nathan and Peter hug a lot more.  
_

**  
Maybe it would be better to forget. **

Peter Petrelli was not a forgetful man. Not once in all his 25 years had he ever forgotten a birthday, a homework deadline or even a library book due date. It made his teachers stop yelling at him for daydreaming long enough to call him "reliable". The only decent compliment he ever received from them. It made his friends and family become more lenient in bothering to write things down in their calendars, relying on the fact that little Petey would remember and remind them.

His ability to remember allowed him to excel at his job; being a nurse he had to remember medication and the times they needed to be taken, the dinner preferences for his patients (like Mr Jacobs was allergic to tomatoes.) and how to recognise the early symptoms for infections and diseases. This aptitude to remember things was an extraordinary gift to him, it defined him, it was a part of his entire being.

So why, when the Haitian offered to let him forget did he accept?

It wasn't a spontaneous decision. Not at all. He'd mulled over it for around two months in his cell, going over the information he'd received since he'd woken up here. He'd very nearly blown up New York, nearly destroyed his family, his friends (what few he had left) and annihilated 0.7 of the world's population. He very nearly became the bad guy.

As it was, his brother wouldn't let him do it, had pulled him into his arms and flew into the sky. Instead of destroying part of the world, by killing his brother he'd destroyed most of his self.

The guilt of that alone was almost enough to make Peter want to erase his memory, for his mind to become blank whenever he delved into the past, but there were things, more things that made him want to forget…

As a child he'd always known he was a mistake. No parents decided to have another child eleven years after their first. No rational parents anyway, and he knew above all else that his parents were rational people… So that left one reason, he was an accident. He'd been left on his own a lot as a child, Nathan was far too old to play games and spend time with him, and his father always saw him as disappointment due to his lack of ambition to become a politician and rather spend his days in class staring out of the window. He didn't even have many friends, he was ostracised by the other children in the school for being the son of Angela Petrelli, a well-to-do snob with a holier-than-thou personality. He'd vowed as child that he wouldn't let other people be alone, hence the reason he'd decided to become a nurse, so he could stay and help people who felt alone.

At school he'd had to go to the public schools, further evidence of his father's distaste for him that he never got to go to the expensive schools like Nathan did. His parents said it was because he never applied himself in lessons, so what was the point in splashing out for an expensive school when he wouldn't work there either. Peter never said anything, didn't even complain when his father bought his third BMW and his mother purchased a new marble bathroom.

Angela Petrelli. His mother and the only relative, (that he'd known at the time) who took time to look after him. He grew to adore her, to do anything to please her. She'd even told him that he was her favourite, which had overjoyed him, after knowing that Nathan was always their father's favourite.

So it was a bitter disappointment when he discovered that she had thought him weak all along, and was willing to let him explode and destroy New York in order to further his older brother's goddamn political career.

Because of his shy nature as a child, he'd never had many girlfriends either… He didn't even get his first kiss until he was 18, and he'd never been in love until… Simone. The woman whose father on his deathbed Peter had promised to care for, and then abandoned the same week. Simone… The beautiful woman he'd grown to love. Simone… The woman he'd inadvertently killed.

He hadn't meant for it to happen. He was still in a very emotional state, having just woken up from a two week coma with visions of himself blowing up. He'd met up with Claude, the cold and unfeeling invisible man who'd taught him a wobbly control of his powers, and then shown him Simone, on the rooftop in Isaac's arms.

He'd been having a lot of trouble controlling his powers but with the sudden anger he felt he had no problem controlling them. He wanted to test them on someone and the one person on the top of his hate list was suddenly Isaac. He wanted to make him afraid, to show him not to mess with Peter Petrelli, but then Isaac had pulled out the gun. Right then Peter had known he'd gone too far with the torment, but he was high on power and confident in his immortality.

Then when the gunshots exploded from the barrel and punctured the chest of Simone, Peter knew his immortality had become worthless.

The one other person he may have felt something for was young Claire Bennet. He was still her hero, no matter how bad he felt. He'd felt some kind of connection with her the night of her Homecoming, before he'd tumbled off the roof with Sylar. He hadn't felt that with anyone having known them for so short a time, but after dying and she became his hero, he'd discovered that she was his illegitimate niece. He'd been hurt that Nathan had never told him about her, surely his brother had known, and Peter always shared everything with him, even when he'd thought he could fly… Yet Nathan hadn't felt the same way in trusting Peter. And that connection he'd thought he had with Claire? The one where he'd felt tingles at the mere thought of her, that was probably because they were related, and even if it wasn't… There was nothing they could do about it now.

And Nathan? The one person he'd loved more than anyone in the entire world that he'd trusted more than anyone he'd ever known. The big brother that he'd idolised and hero worshipped, that he'd loved unconditionally? That big brother had dismissed his feelings and told the world he was a depressed suicidal, because he didn't want to ruin his political campaign. His big brother had almost allowed him to destroy New York…

But Nathan had also caught him, when he jumped off the office building he'd flown up and caught him. Nathan had dropped everything and travelled to Texas when he really needed him. He'd stayed on his bedside vigil for the two weeks he'd been in a coma. He'd cried over his body when he'd died saving Mohinder. His big brother had sacrificed his entire career, his family and future to save Peter's conscience in the end…

Nathan had been the best big brother that Peter could have ever asked for. And how did Peter repay him? By not being strong enough to fly himself away when the radiation began... And then Nathan had died because of it.

After two months of mulling over his life, and who he once was, Peter knocked on the window of his cell, to the Haitian standing guard, and he asked to forget.


End file.
